On April 8, wildlife advocacy and conservation groups including Friends of the Clearwater filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Montana, intending to gain protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the gray wolf in the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. This action comes on the heels of the Feb. 7 determination by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that the Western U.S. distinct population segment (“DPS”) does not warrant listing as an endangered or threatened species under the ESA. FOC is joined by Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment, Western Watersheds Project, Wilderness Watch, Protect the Wolves, WildEarth Guardians, Trap Free Montana, International Wildlife Coexistence Network, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Predator Defense in this litigation, with Kelly Nokes at Western Environmental Law Center as lead attorney.

The status of the gray wolf under the ESA is long and complicated. Adoption of a 1978 rule made it one of the first species listed as Endangered. Decades later, after both artificial reintroduction and natural recovery in the western U.S. had expanded the wolf population, political pressure built towards delisting. Litigation halted USFWS delisting of the Western DPS in 2008, and again in 2009 for a Northern Rocky Mountains (“NRM”) subpopulation including Montana and Idaho. But in 2011, in what was widely seen
as an election year move, Senator Jon Tester (MT) attached a legislative rider that delisted wolves in Montana and Idaho. Litigation prevented delisting of wolves in Wyoming in 2012, but by 2017 it was court- approved.

Then in 2021, FOC as part of a coalition of dozens of groups petitioned the USFWS to re-list the gray wolf Western U.S. DPS, citing “new laws in Idaho and Montana, and longstanding wolf management in Wyoming ...intended to reduce gray wolf populations in the core wolf recovery zone by 85 to 90 percent by incentivizing wolf killing and authorizing use of new methods to kill wolves.” That spurred a USFWS Status Review which preceded their “not warranted” determination, leading to our latest legal efforts.

Regardless of the abject cruelty demonstrated by states’ promotion of aggressive killing regimes that feature aerial gunning, killing pups for bounties, widespread traps and snares, night hunting, shooting over bait, and even running them over with snowmobiles, the decimation of wolf populations makes no sense ecologically. The many ecosystem types wolves inhabit are unique communities of plant and animal life enhanced by the healthy wolf populations and predator- prey relationships. Wolves have been described as a keystone species, and scientists have noted its return has triggered cascading ecological shifts toward increased bird and mammalian diversity, dampened population fluctuations of prey species, and changed patterns of vegetation.

Those of us having the opportunity to directly observe wolves in our incredible shared landscapes see them as our wild relatives in this community of life. Because the USFWS is failing in its oversight and conservation duties, we are asking the court to step in and reject the primitive, fear-based impulses exhibited by state wildlife agencies.